Sophos' April Fool's joke says romantic fiction a deterrent to hackers

Who says security vendors don't have a sense of humor? Sophos Inc. today urged companies to consider hiding sensitive data in snippets of romantic literature or other diversionary text to protect the data from hackers.

In an April Fool's Day press release, the company said its research shows that hackers can be sidetracked from their mission to steal corporate data when enterprise networks are flooded with romantic fiction.

Not only will stories of love and lust make it more difficult for hackers to uncover confidential information, "they can also be distracted for over 1.4 hours" by the content, Sophos said, giving security teams time to stop a data breach.

Sophos claimed that its research resulted in a new technology called "Protection through Distraction," which it is incorporating into future versions of its software. Sophos also plans to roll out the technology to select customers as soon as possible, the release noted. Going forward, the company's security researchers have been told to write romantic fiction along with their regular duties of writing antispam software.

:story: Full story: Computerworld